FAQ
Who are your favorite authors?
For science fiction, I’m somewhat old school, growing up with Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick, Patricia McKillip, Joan Vinge, Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin. I could go on. Frank Herbert’s Dune single-handedly threw me into my love affair with this genre. For literary fiction, my favorites are probably Steve Erickson (not the fantasy writer), Cormac McCarthy, Jeanette Winterson, Emily St. John Mandell, Toni Morrison, and more. I’m a lover of mystery/crime too: Elmore Leonard, Robert B. Parker, James Lee Burke, James W. Hall, Carl Hiassen, David Joy, Michael Connelly, Amy Pochoda, and more.
Favorite novels?
Dune (Frank Herbert), Tours of the Black Clock (Steve Erickson), The Passion (Jeanette Winterson), Station Eleven (Emily St. John Mandel), Siddhartha (Herman Hesse), The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini), Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving), The Road (Cormac McCarthy), To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee), Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury), Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Philip K. Dick), Get Shorty (Elmore Leonard), the Spenser books (Robert B. Parker). How about a hard to find treasure I read during college days? The Last Western by Thomas S. Klise.
How about nonfiction? Including a “really out there” nonfiction book you treasure?
The “out there” book might be Godel, Escher, Bach, even though I don’t understand most of the math! If I had to narrow nonfiction to a few all-time favorites? Teacher Man (Frank McCourt) and Young Men and Fire (Norman Maclean). Although not too much of a sports fan, I found the book Friday Night Lights (H.G. Bissinger) quite fascinating. For writing reference books, I’d go with The 10% Solution (Ken Rand), The Elements of Style (Strunk & White), Writing Down the Bones (Natalie Goldberg), and On Writing (Stephen King).
Okay, what’s the best writing advice you ever received?
Sit down and write, and leave out all the boring parts.
